Science & technology

More than one billion young people risk damaging their hearing through excessive use of smartphones and other audio devices, the UN has warned, proposing new safety standards for safe volume levels. In a bid to safeguard hearing, the World Health Organization and International Telecommunications Union issued a non-binding international standard …

Forget dense forests. Even roadsides could be harbouring new species that are hard to find. Scientists from the University of Delhi have discovered a new amphibian — a mysterious narrow-mouthed frog, that makes only a four-day appearance in seasonal roadside puddles every year in Kerala’s Wayanad district — according to …

A new species of ‘crying’ snake has been discovered in Lepa-Rada district of Arunachal Pradesh. The discovery of the non-venomous crying keelback, whose zoological name is Hebius lacrima , has been published in Zootaxa , the New Zealand-based scientific mega-journal for animal taxonomy. “The name for this keelback was suggested …

Hydrothermarchaeota, or microbes living in extreme environments may hold clues to the evolution of early life. These microbes use carbon monoxide and sulfate as sources of energy – chemosynthesis. Published inThe ISME Journal, the study used genomic approaches to unravel the secrets of its survival. It may help predict about …

The abundance of 86 proteins were altered It is well known that TB bacteria can actively manipulate the degradative pathway of macrophages (cells responsible for detecting, engulfing and destroying pathogens) such that instead of getting destroyed, the TB bacteria can actually multiply inside the macrophages. Now, researches at the Institute …

By studying the faecal samples of over 100 healthy people from Madhya Pradesh and Kerala, researchers from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Bhopal have decoded the Indian gut microbiome and have created a gene catalogue. Constructed using multiple omics approaches such as genomics and proteomics, the …

Ethmostigmus centipedes dispersed across peninsular India to form new species Fossils and advanced genetic methods to study relationships between species now tell an intriguing story about a group of tropical centipedes. Continental drift (the moving apart of continents) almost 100 million years ago created many species of Ethmostigmus centipedes in …

13 drug targets for treating retinoblastoma have been identified Based on computational modelling, researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras have identified the biochemical pathways that eye cancer (retinoblastoma) preferentially chooses for growth and survival. The pathways chosen are very different from the ones that normal, healthy cells …

The majestic table of elements that hangs on the walls of chemistry classrooms across the world has turned 150 years old in 2019. The ‘Periodic Table of Elements’, or simply, ‘The Table’ for many, was written by Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev on 17th February 1869. Looking back, the Table opens a …

Hand transplants may soon become a reality in Karnataka, with some hospitals applying for transplantation licence with the State government. State Health Director P.S. Prabhakar, who is also the Joint Director (Medical) and the transplantation licensing authority for hospitals, told The Hindu on Saturday that at least three hospitals had …